The Italian Socialist Congress

Published:PravdaNo. 66, July 15, 1912.

      Signed:I..

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages170-172.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Afew days ago the Thirteenth Congress of the Italian
Socialist Party came to a close in the town of Reggio Emilia.

Thestruggle within the Italian Socialist Party hag assumed
particularly sharp forms in recent years. Originally there were two basic
trends: revolutionary and reformist. The revolutionaries upheld the
proletarian character of the movement and combated all manifestations of
opportunism, i.e., the spirit of moderation, deals with the bourgeoisie,
and renunciation of the ultimate (socialist) aims of the working-class
movement. The cardinal principle of this trend and the basis of its views
are the class struggle.

Thereformists, in fighting for reforms, i.e., individual improvements
of political and economic conditions, kept forgetting the socialist
character of the movement. They advocated blocs and alliances with the
bourgeoisie to the point of socialists entering bourgeois ministries, of
renouncing consistently republican convictions (in monarchical Italy,
republican propaganda In itself is not considered unlawful), of defending
“colonial policy”, the policy of seizing colonies, of oppressing,
plundering and exterminating the natives, etc.

Thesetwo basic trends, which exist in one form or another inallsocialist parties, gave rise in Italy to two further extreme
trends that deviated completely from socialism and tended therefore to
dissociate themselves from the workers’ Socialist Party. One of these
non-socialist extremes issyndicalism, which became
“fashionable” in Italy at one time. The syndicalists inclined towards
anarchism, slipped into revolutionary phrase-mongering, destroyed the
discipline of the working-class struggle and opposed the use ofthe parliamentary platform by socialists, or upheld such opposition.

Anarchistinfluence is feeble everywhere, and the working-class
movement is rapidly ridding itself of this sickness.

TheItalian syndicalists (led by Arturo Labriola) are alreadyoutsidethe Socialist Party. Their role in the working-class
movement is negligible. The Marxist revolutionaries in Italy, as in other
countries, do not in the least indulge in anarchist sentiments and trends,
which disrupt the proletarian movement.

Thereformists are less staunch with regard to the extreme Right
reformists who, by drifting to a liberal labour policy, pass completely
into the liberal camp and desert to the bourgeoisie. That is why the
removal of these traitors to the working-class cause from the Socialist
Party seldom takes place without the Marxist revolutionaries having to wage
a most bitter struggle againstallreformists. This was the case
in France, for example, where Millerand, an opportunist and reformist,
ended by a deal with the bourgeoisie and entered a bourgeois Ministry.

Thesame is true of Italy. There the reformists have split into Left
reformists (led by Turati) and Right reformists (led by Bissolati). The
Reggio Emilia Congress marked the last act of this split.

Therewere three trends at the Congress:

(1) the revolutionaries (they had about 12,500 votes at the Congress,
according to the number of their supporters in the Party);

(2) the Left reformists (about 9,000), and

(3) the Right reformists (about 2,000). The revolutionaries moved for
expelling Bissolati and another three extreme Right reformists from the
Party. As for the Left reformists, one-third of them also favoured
expulsion, but they wanted the reason for it to be expressed in “milder”
terms, while two-thirds were against expulsion and for a mere censure.

Therevolutionaries, who were in a majority, as the above figures show,
gained the upper hand, and Bissolati and Co. were expelled.

Whatwere Bissolati’s views and actions which necessitated his
expulsion from the Party? Bissolati, in the face of numerous decisions of
the Party, went so far in backing the bourgeois Ministry as to almost
become a “ministerwithout portfolio” himself (that is, not being a minister, he behaved like
a supporter and member of the bourgeois Ministry).

Despiterepublican convictions, which Italian socialists strictly
adhere to, Bissolati began to make trips to the Quirinal, where he visited
the king and held negotiations with him! He went as far as to defend
Italy’s present war against Turkey, although theentireParty has
emphatically condemned the war as shameless bourgeois plundering and a
dirty business—massacring African natives in Tripoli by means of improved
deadly weapons.

Followingthe expulsion of Bissolati and Co.,allthe Right
reformists left the Party and founded a partyof their own, which
they named the Socialist Reformist Party. Behind that façade isin realitya “party” of liberal-monarchist “labour”
politicians.

Asplit is something distressing and painful. But some times it becomes
indispensable, and then all weakness, all “sentimentality” (a term used
in Reggio by a compatriot of ours, Balabanova), is a crime. The leaders of
the working class are not angels, saints or heroes, but people like anyone
else. They make mistakes. The Party puts them right. The German Workers’
Party sometimes had to correct the opportunist errors of even such great
leaders as Bebel.

Butwhen someone persists in an error, when, to defend an error, a
group is formed that spurns all the decisions of the party, all the
discipline of the proletarian army, a split becomes indispensable. And the
party of the Italian socialist proletariat has taken the right path by
removing the syndicalists and Right reformists from its ranks.